Wednesday, May 16, 2012
OLW88 Hosted by Heather Telford!
Don't forget to click over to Heather's blog for this week's OLW challenge! It's right up Heather's alley and will have me breaking out my sponges today. Oh, goodie!!!!!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
CASification Inspired by Glenda Wyatt
When I saw the card by Glenda Wyatt in the latest special issue from Papercrafts Magazine, I squealed in delight and made my son ask, "Wha'?" He didn't get it, but you will:
Of course, Glenda's brilliant use of TOOTHPICKS to make a GRID for an adorable patterned-paper flower made me squeal, and while it's already CAS (check out all that glorious white space!), I decided to use my Hero Arts Envelope Pattern background to make a flatter version of Glenda's card.
I masked an area of the card and then stamped the Envelope Pattern at an angle, so the pattern would be horizontal/vertical rather than diagonal. Clever, eh? Then, after unsuccessfully experimenting with my flower punches and really wishing I had a die cut machine and an infinite number of dies, I thought about Papertrey's Beautiful Blooms, with this totally fab and timeless daisy stamp.
YAY!!!!!
It's not as awesomely creative as Glenda's original, and I had to move my sentiment onto the grid because the flower wasn't quite large enough for the grid area I stamped, but it's a bit more mailable (even with the button) and it gave me a chance to use SU's Cherry Cobbler, which is completely wonderful.
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink (Beautiful Blooms), Hero Arts (Envelope Pattern), SU (sentiment)
ink: SU pretty in pink, cherry cobbler (yummy!)
paper: PTI white
accessories: button, glue dot, craft thread, post-its for masking
Of course, Glenda's brilliant use of TOOTHPICKS to make a GRID for an adorable patterned-paper flower made me squeal, and while it's already CAS (check out all that glorious white space!), I decided to use my Hero Arts Envelope Pattern background to make a flatter version of Glenda's card.
I masked an area of the card and then stamped the Envelope Pattern at an angle, so the pattern would be horizontal/vertical rather than diagonal. Clever, eh? Then, after unsuccessfully experimenting with my flower punches and really wishing I had a die cut machine and an infinite number of dies, I thought about Papertrey's Beautiful Blooms, with this totally fab and timeless daisy stamp.
YAY!!!!!
It's not as awesomely creative as Glenda's original, and I had to move my sentiment onto the grid because the flower wasn't quite large enough for the grid area I stamped, but it's a bit more mailable (even with the button) and it gave me a chance to use SU's Cherry Cobbler, which is completely wonderful.
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink (Beautiful Blooms), Hero Arts (Envelope Pattern), SU (sentiment)
ink: SU pretty in pink, cherry cobbler (yummy!)
paper: PTI white
accessories: button, glue dot, craft thread, post-its for masking
Monday, May 14, 2012
Winterberry in a Single Layer
...with bling, of course.
Not much chit-chat today. I'm off to my craft area to make some new stuff...because this is the last card on my hard drive I've not posted!
Blessings to you, and thanks for your readership!
Supplies
stamps: Winterberry (PTI)
ink: Memento bamboo, SU real red
paper: PTI white
accessories: rhinestones, corner chomper
Not much chit-chat today. I'm off to my craft area to make some new stuff...because this is the last card on my hard drive I've not posted!
Blessings to you, and thanks for your readership!
Supplies
stamps: Winterberry (PTI)
ink: Memento bamboo, SU real red
paper: PTI white
accessories: rhinestones, corner chomper
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Geezer Explained and a Yellow Card
In my last post, I referred to my husband as a geezer at 47 years old. This is a bit of a running joke since I've referred to him as a geezer since our early twenties. You see, he's ALWAYS going to be older than I am. So no matter how old I feel, he's older. And this makes me feel good.
He can tease me about my gray hair, and I can counter with teasing about his baldness: "At least I HAVE hair!" But that just evens the score.
He will never be able to counter the age thing, so I WIN. We laugh a lot in this house. And exaggerate. As I've grown older, I now believe that people all people except my husband need to be at least 90 to be geezers. When I'm 80 (God willing), I'm sure I'll bump geezer age up to 100. But George is a geezer right now and has been for twenty-plus years.
And now for a yellow card.
Design Discussion: Nothing cosmic, but it's pretty, no? I actually tried a black mat under the stamped panel and did NOT like it, which totally surprised me. It would seem that a touch more black would unify the design, but it made it look really heavy and off. I suspect if I had a dark gray ink and paper, a mat would have worked great. Sometimes, black is just too stark.
The yellow card stock is from Gina K and is my favorite yellow card stock ever. It's really yellow without being too yellow, if you know what I mean.
Supplies
stamps: A Muse (flowers), SU (sentiment)
ink: honestly can't remember the yellow; Memento black
paper: Gina K yellow, PTI white
accessories: yellow pearls, dimensionals
He can tease me about my gray hair, and I can counter with teasing about his baldness: "At least I HAVE hair!" But that just evens the score.
He will never be able to counter the age thing, so I WIN. We laugh a lot in this house. And exaggerate. As I've grown older, I now believe that people all people except my husband need to be at least 90 to be geezers. When I'm 80 (God willing), I'm sure I'll bump geezer age up to 100. But George is a geezer right now and has been for twenty-plus years.
And now for a yellow card.
Design Discussion: Nothing cosmic, but it's pretty, no? I actually tried a black mat under the stamped panel and did NOT like it, which totally surprised me. It would seem that a touch more black would unify the design, but it made it look really heavy and off. I suspect if I had a dark gray ink and paper, a mat would have worked great. Sometimes, black is just too stark.
The yellow card stock is from Gina K and is my favorite yellow card stock ever. It's really yellow without being too yellow, if you know what I mean.
Supplies
stamps: A Muse (flowers), SU (sentiment)
ink: honestly can't remember the yellow; Memento black
paper: Gina K yellow, PTI white
accessories: yellow pearls, dimensionals
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Today's Friday, Right?
Oh, wait. It's Saturday. And I forgot to post yesterday. Hmmm.
Today is my husband's birthday, and here's the card I made for him. Dude cards are always so hard, and I think I like this way more than he does. But still, it's cool, isn't it?
I told him the gold was for his Golden Years. He's 47. The geezer will always be older than I am!
Hope you are having a great weekend.
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey (Masculine Motifs)
ink: Memento (with off-stamping)
paper: PTI natural
accessories: gold smooch, dimensional, sponge
Today is my husband's birthday, and here's the card I made for him. Dude cards are always so hard, and I think I like this way more than he does. But still, it's cool, isn't it?
I told him the gold was for his Golden Years. He's 47. The geezer will always be older than I am!
Hope you are having a great weekend.
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey (Masculine Motifs)
ink: Memento (with off-stamping)
paper: PTI natural
accessories: gold smooch, dimensional, sponge
Thursday, May 10, 2012
More Smooching!
Here's the card I made for my husband to give his mother for Mother's Day. I used yesterday's Smooch technique with Botanical Silhouettes, one of the anniversary sets from Papertrey and perfect for smooching!
Here's a close-up so you can see the shimmer. The green on this card shows up darker than in real life...getting the color balance right in Picasa is sometimes beyond me!
I used LuLu Lavender and Pear Tart Memento inks, and light purple and lime Smooch...good color combos for this technique.
On another subject, Super Jen asked what I do with all the cards I make. Well, I send a lot of them to friends, family, and random people I meet on the internet; and I give gift sets to friends and family who ask for them. Most of my cards, however, go to the troops overseas so they have cards to send home to their families and friends.
My husband served 20 years in the US Air Force and deployed several times. Our armed service personnel--and their families--are near and dear to my heart.
There was an interesting thread on Splitcoast recently discussing whether or not we need to produce "useful" things. Is the act of creation sufficient reason to do what we do, or should there be an end-user for our art/craft products?
I'm extremely ambivalent on this issue and truly feel every artist/crafter ought to do what makes her/him happy. I don't like to think of making cards that won't be used because I'm practical that way, but when all the troops come home, who will I send them to? Should I try to sell them? Package them to sell at my church bazaar every fall to benefit the church? Make fewer cards? Shift back to more scrapbooking? Bookbinding?
Ultimately, what matters is that I like making things with my own two hands, ink, and paper. It's therapeutic, makes me happy, and occasionally makes other people happy, too. I'm not going to worry too much about it. Besides, that church bazaar thing sounds pretty good.
But for now, it's the troops who get most of my cards. And that makes me happy.
So what about you? Do you make cards just to make them? Do you send them yourself? Or do you sell or donate them?
Supplies
stamps: PTI Botanical Silhouettes, Faux Ribbon
ink: Memento
paper: PTI
accessories: Smooch, sponge
Here's a close-up so you can see the shimmer. The green on this card shows up darker than in real life...getting the color balance right in Picasa is sometimes beyond me!
I used LuLu Lavender and Pear Tart Memento inks, and light purple and lime Smooch...good color combos for this technique.
On another subject, Super Jen asked what I do with all the cards I make. Well, I send a lot of them to friends, family, and random people I meet on the internet; and I give gift sets to friends and family who ask for them. Most of my cards, however, go to the troops overseas so they have cards to send home to their families and friends.
My husband served 20 years in the US Air Force and deployed several times. Our armed service personnel--and their families--are near and dear to my heart.
There was an interesting thread on Splitcoast recently discussing whether or not we need to produce "useful" things. Is the act of creation sufficient reason to do what we do, or should there be an end-user for our art/craft products?
I'm extremely ambivalent on this issue and truly feel every artist/crafter ought to do what makes her/him happy. I don't like to think of making cards that won't be used because I'm practical that way, but when all the troops come home, who will I send them to? Should I try to sell them? Package them to sell at my church bazaar every fall to benefit the church? Make fewer cards? Shift back to more scrapbooking? Bookbinding?
Ultimately, what matters is that I like making things with my own two hands, ink, and paper. It's therapeutic, makes me happy, and occasionally makes other people happy, too. I'm not going to worry too much about it. Besides, that church bazaar thing sounds pretty good.
But for now, it's the troops who get most of my cards. And that makes me happy.
So what about you? Do you make cards just to make them? Do you send them yourself? Or do you sell or donate them?
Supplies
stamps: PTI Botanical Silhouettes, Faux Ribbon
ink: Memento
paper: PTI
accessories: Smooch, sponge
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
An Easy Technique that Exploits Clear Stamps and Smooch Ink
First of all, don't forget OLW87 on Jennifer's Blog! Hope I can play tomorrow!!!
One great thing about clear stamps is how incredibly easy it is to place them almost exactly where you want them. It's not as precise as I would like, but I experimented with double stamping solid images to get a soft, layered effect, and today's technique doesn't have to be precise. It's actually quite forgiving.
First, let's look at the finished card and matching envelope.
The paper is Fabriano Medioevalis...gorgeous watercolor paper with natural deckled edges. Yum. And don't you love the mottled look of the koi? Creating this look is amazingly easy!
1) First, stamp a solid image in a waterproof ink. I used Memento Tangelo
2) Then, clean the stamp and sponge Smooch (I used Carrot) directly onto the clean stamp. Don't cover the whole image...leave blotches of the ink on the stamp.
3) Re-stamp the image, aligning it as closely as possible to the ink image.
4) Sit back and appreciate your shimmery stamping!
I experimented with lots of color combinations and quickly discovered that some work better than others. (That's one advantage of having lots of bottles of Smooch!) Generally, monochromatic stamping with a lighter shade of ink than the Smooch works great, but gold Smooch on the tangelo looked icky. Silver looked great on light blue, though. Sometimes, light colors of Smooch show up great on darker inks (the lightest pink Smooch and hot pink Memento ink look awesome!) but light blue Smooch disappeared on dark blue Memento. Play around on scrap paper before committing good card stock to whatever combo you want to try.
What do you think? Does it make you want to order a selection of Smooch? *wink*
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink Masculine Motifs
ink: Memento, Smooch
paper: Fabriano
accessories: envelope, sponge, plastic paint tray
One great thing about clear stamps is how incredibly easy it is to place them almost exactly where you want them. It's not as precise as I would like, but I experimented with double stamping solid images to get a soft, layered effect, and today's technique doesn't have to be precise. It's actually quite forgiving.
First, let's look at the finished card and matching envelope.
The paper is Fabriano Medioevalis...gorgeous watercolor paper with natural deckled edges. Yum. And don't you love the mottled look of the koi? Creating this look is amazingly easy!
1) First, stamp a solid image in a waterproof ink. I used Memento Tangelo
2) Then, clean the stamp and sponge Smooch (I used Carrot) directly onto the clean stamp. Don't cover the whole image...leave blotches of the ink on the stamp.
3) Re-stamp the image, aligning it as closely as possible to the ink image.
4) Sit back and appreciate your shimmery stamping!
I experimented with lots of color combinations and quickly discovered that some work better than others. (That's one advantage of having lots of bottles of Smooch!) Generally, monochromatic stamping with a lighter shade of ink than the Smooch works great, but gold Smooch on the tangelo looked icky. Silver looked great on light blue, though. Sometimes, light colors of Smooch show up great on darker inks (the lightest pink Smooch and hot pink Memento ink look awesome!) but light blue Smooch disappeared on dark blue Memento. Play around on scrap paper before committing good card stock to whatever combo you want to try.
What do you think? Does it make you want to order a selection of Smooch? *wink*
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink Masculine Motifs
ink: Memento, Smooch
paper: Fabriano
accessories: envelope, sponge, plastic paint tray
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)